PO Box 531  •  Durham,NC 27702  •  Telephone: (919) 419-8311  •  Fax: (919) 419-8315

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Mississippi schools adopt civil rights curriculum

This may be old news for some of you, but I just stumbled across this story the other day:
JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi, where violence in the 1960s came to epitomize the struggle for racial equality, could become a pioneer in offering civil rights history lessons from kindergarten through high school.

Gov. Haley Barbour announced Monday [March 20, 2006] he had signed a bill that authorizes the state's public school districts to make civil rights and human rights a part of the curriculum in all grades.

Under the bill, which becomes law July 1, a commission would be appointed to help districts develop the curriculum and find resources to offset the costs. Implementation would be left to individual school districts.

Susan Glisson, executive director of the Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi, spearheaded the bill.
The article says that one of the goals is to teach more about "contributions made by grass-roots people, some of whose names we may never know."

I have nothing to add, except to say this sounds like a Good Thing.
posted by R. Neal at 9:21 AM | Email this post | Post a Comment
0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Return to Facing South's main page

Southern News Update

Sign up for Facing South, our free biweekly progressive update.

ENTER YOUR EMAIL HERE:

Who Are These Folks?

CHRIS KROMM blogs three days a week for Facing South. Chris is Executive Director of the Institute for Southern Studies and publisher of the Institute’s award-winning magazine, Southern Exposure.

SUE STURGIS blogs four days a week for Facing South. Sue is the Institute’s Editorial Director and a former reporter for The Independent Weekly and The Raleigh News & Observer.

DESIREE EVANS blogs four days a week for Facing South. Desiree is a Research Associate at the Institute and former policy analyst for TransAfrica.

The views expressed on Facing South are those of the authors and not necessarily represent the views of the Institute for Southern Studies. The editors reserve the right to reject comments that are abusive, offensive, misleading, or that promote commercial goods and services.

Previous Posts